Dewey as a Teacher
Throughout his lifetime Dewey was known as a rather shy and unassuming man. His manner won him praise in the classroom. In 1890, an anonymous writer for the student newspaper the Chronicle, described Dewey as "modest and retiring" but noted that his "method of instruction is excellent" and he "is one of the most popular, most satisfactory class room lecturers in the University." The writer went on to praise Dewey's "easy, earnest and unconscious manner before a class" and the "utter lack of any spirit of pedantry." In his classroom, Dewey fostered a sense of equality with his students and was praised for placing a "higher premium upon a single attempt at original, intelligent thought than upon the parrot-like repetition of whole volumes of other men's thoughts."56 William Warner Bishop, a former student and later librarian of the University of Michigan, writing over fifty years after being a student under Dewey, favorably recalled, "He was by far the ablest lecturer under whom I have studied; never dictating, he was clear and unmistakable in expression. You could get the whole of his talk, in contrast to the very little one often received from speakers who were more fluent."57
Poem about Dewey's psychology course appearing in the student paper Michigan Argonaut, Vol. 7, No. 6, November 10, 1888.
Naturally there were also contrasting views. An anonymous author in the student annual the Oracle offered some "specimen definitions" from the "Sophster's New Dictionary." One of the definitions read "Dew(e)y.- Adj. Cold, impersonal, psychological, sphinx-like, anomalous and petrifying to flunkers."58 Student publications contain several sarcastic jabs at Dewey and the deep and heavy nature of some of his courses. His courses in psychology prompted a twelve-line poem in the Michigan Argonaut about "a girl who died Taking Dewey's Psychology."59
Even James Rowland Angell, the son of President Angell and a future colleague of Dewey's, got into the act, contributing a poem to the Oracle that included the lines, "Dewey, with countenance changeless as stone,/ Ever recalling the north frigid zone."60
While Dewey may have been "petrifying to flunkers," he apparently didn't strike the same fear in students who cheated. Speaking before one of his larger classes in 1893, Dewey remarked, "the fact was brought to my attention that a great deal of cheating had been going on in my classes." He acknowledged his "share of the responsibility for leaving in the faculty code until recently a rule that treated the matter as a light offence," but added that a large share of the blame belongs to the "respectable and upright students who connive at the evil by silence or merrymaking." Dewey vowed that he would "endeavor not to go to sleep in class, but shall not act as a spy." In conclusion he remarked, "I wish it understood that any who may come to the classroom and cheat, I regard with the utmost contempt, not simply officially, but personally."61
"A Merry Christmas 1887." Four coeds in Dewey's psychology class: Elsie Jones (Mrs. Charles H. Cooley), Mary Ashley, Bertha Wright (Mrs. Henry Carter Adams), and Caroline Gelston. (Photographs Vertical File, Bentley Historical Library.)
Dewey left behind a remarkable written record of his courses and their content in his textbooks, printed syllabi, and in his numerous articles. In "Why Study Philosophy?" he answered the question by stating that the study of philosophy allowed for the transformation of ideas "from assumptions which control us into tools of inquiry and action." Philosophy also provided "an intellectual inventory" that would "enable us to master our past instead of being mastered by it." To Dewey, the philosopher "works out his ideas by expressing them, by trying them on others" and making the ideas influence the actions of others.62
The trying out of ideas and their influence on others is most apparent in the notes of Dewey's lectures as recorded by his students. Eliza Jane Read Sunderland's notes from the course "Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century," for example, consist of voluminous writings in mostly complete sentences. Lecture number four centered on a discussion of Rousseau's Emile and gives evidence that Dewey was paying attention to educational philosophy. The discussion is recorded as follows: "In this [Emile] he gives his theory of education. He attempts to explain what the proper training is. This book is the basis for Pestalozzi." Many of the ideas of Swiss educational reformer Johann Pestalozzi, were absorbed by Dewey, particularly the concept that instruction should be focused on the child's development and experience rather than rote memorization. Lecture six found Dewey delving into aesthetics, and Sunderland recorded, "Poetry is the essential form of expressing all that is truly human." It is the means by which the "self finds expression."63
The notebooks of Charles Horton Cooley are more suggestive of philosophical ideas influencing the actions of others. Cooley graduated from Michigan in 1887 and returned as a graduate student attending Dewey's lectures on his way to earning a Ph.D. in 1894. Cooley would go on to establish sociology as a discipline at Michigan, but the roots of sociology extend to the courses of Henry Carter Adams and Dewey. Cooley's notes on "Political Philosophy" reflect Dewey's continued emphasis on society as an organism and indicate the introduction of some sociological principles. "Social evolution is the process of organization," Cooley recorded. How far social organization is realized "is the test of evolution." The lectures proceeded through systems of organization?ethical, economic, and political–and delved into philosophic socialism: "selfishness is the unexpressed preface of socialism." Cooley's lecture notes are filled with references to group dynamics, the nature of consciousness, and the relation of the individual to society through law, self-interest, and will. Cooley recorded Dewey as stating, "individuality means progress because it means continued diversity."64
< Previous | Page 11 of 16 | Next >
